Delhi High Court hits state government with legal action over 30-year Mehrauli land plot scandal

The Delhi High Court has come down heavily on the Delhi government and has ordered initiation of contempt proceedings against it for failing to provide residential plots to 170-odd villagers and keeping them engaged in protracted legal battle for over 20 years.

The division bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Jayanth Nath observed that for the last 33 years, successive governments in Delhi kept the people of Rangpuri village in Mehrauli waiting for the plots and ultimately denied them the benefits, in 1983.

The villagers of Rangpuri, who work as labourers and earn their livelihood from menial jobs, would have been the owners of the land that would cost Rs 1.5 crore each.

The High Court has rapped the government for failing to provide plots to villagers in Mehrauli

Sources said the current market price of the land would amount to Rs 1.5 crore to Rs 2 crore for each 120-sq yard plot.

To make things worse, the government had even issued allotment letters to the villagers at a public function, then back-tracked saying it did not have any land to allot.

The residential land was announced under the 20-Point Program scheme.

The plots, measuring 120 sq yards, were to be handed over to the landless villagers for residential purposes.

The bench said: “It appears to us that no genuine effort is made to locate the land which can now be made available for achieving the purpose of 20-Point Programme of the government…the difficulty sought to be projected for the implementation of the orders by single judge is not genuine, but only an attempt to circumvent the said directions.”

During the legal battle that went on for over two decades with 176 petitioners claiming their rights through advocate RK Saini, the High Court and the Supreme Court ticked off the Delhi administration for not standing by its promise and shying away from its legal obligation and social responsibility.

It was observed that 52 petitioners entitled to the land have already passed away.

The Delhi administration said in its affidavit that the resolution passed by Gaon Sabha in respect of the certain portions were part of the private parties.

It issued the allotment letters to the landless villagers without verifying the actual position.

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Therefore, as the resolution passed was not with respect to the subject land, the mere issuance of the allotment letter does not confer any right in favour of the villagers.

However, the high court in 2011 ruled in the favour of the villagers and asked the administration to set up a committee and find out the procedural lapse and also locate the land that could be allotted.

When the Delhi administration challenged it before the Supreme Court in 2012, the apex court upheld the challenged order and ticked it off calling the petition a frivolous one and also causing a burden on the exchequer.

It saddled the cost of Rs 2.5 lakh to be paid to the petitioners and transferred the case to the division bench of the High Court.

The matter was then heard in July 2012 by a division bench, and it was observed that allotment of land on paper at a public function was an attempt by the Delhi administration or the political parties ruling the administration to draw mileage out of such welfare schemes, and also won elections.

“The portions from the Gaon Sabha land that were allotted to us on paper under 20-Point Program of the government, but they never got the physical possession for the same. After the land was allotted to us on paper, we were told that they would allotted the land after the demarcation. However, when we tried ascertaining whether the land has been demarcated we were manhandled and also charged for constructing on the government land,” says 58-year-old Nand Kishor, a resident of Rangpuri.